So you don't see the possibility of too many plants per square foot of soil and root bound problems? They out grow their space, instead of one plant to up pot you have multiple plants all tangled up at the roots and that will cause stress/damage for all of them. IMHO.
No i dont see any of those issues any longer,too many plants per sq ft can be an obvious issue in rare cases if a guy goes nuts,mainly because of the lighting aspect & from the plants touching each other,the main drawback to overcrowded plants is when they touch they grow tall & spindely instead of bushing out.
Root bound is based on facts from standard botany but we as indoor marijuana growers are not playing by the rules of standard botany,remember we are growing a plant that will only live to be 4 months old on average,in alot of cases the plant only lives 3 months,not nearly long enough for root bound to become an issue,a mother plant that is expected to live 9 months to a year will obviously need a very large pot but plants meant for fast harvest do not.
I used to use all 3 gallon pots for my grow ops,after seeing guys grow 3 ft plants that yeilded damm near an ounce per plant,out of a friggin red party cup i tried my 1st grow using smaller pots,i switched to all one gallon pots,after switching to the one gallon pots i had less problems with the grow & the grow was faster to harvest than the previous grow by about 14 days, with the same strain from clones taken from the same mother.
I dont grow hydro but i learn all i can about hydro because i will be making the jump to all flood & drain systems very soon,in talking with several highly skilled hydro & areo growers over the last 2 years i learned a very important fact,while discussing why hydro & areo are so much faster growing methods over soil grows it was explained to me like this.
The oxygen delievery to the root mass from the near constant supply of fresh oxygen being delievered directly to the root mass is a large part of the reason why the hydro/areo methods are so much faster growing methods,right then i knew why my grows had sped up by several weeks,the only way a plant grown in soil recieves any oxygen to its root mass is from watering,each time you water you give the roots fresh oxygen,by me using smaller pots the soil dried out much faster causing me to water more often,with the more frequent watering comes more oxygen to the root mass.
A root system only needs to be large enough to supply the daily needs of the plant & no larger,you just need to water & feed more often thats it.
If you get a chance read a thread from a mod here titled "its all bullshit",i learned more from reading that thread than i have from reading any other information on the internet,it caused me to rethink what i thought i knew & apply the methods i saw in my grows,its a kick ass read,i'll get the link for you & put it in this thread as soon as i have time, i have a tutorial im writing on adding electrical supply lines to the grow room right now so it may be tomorrow before i get back to you with the link.
